Star Wars Rebels: Josh’s “Path Of The Jedi” Review.

Star Wars Rebels is back, and it’s back with a bang! Path Of The Jedi is the first episode in the second part of the first season. The series took a short break in November, however it’s back and it jumps straight back in at the deep end!

I’m a big lover of all aspects of the Star Wars universe, especially the Force. The mysticism that the Force brings to Star Wars can be confusing. On the other hand it makes for some really captivating storytelling, it also brings a great amount of mythology to a galaxy which appears very technological and futuristic.

The latest episode Path Of The Jedi took us on a journey with Kanan and Ezra as Kanan looks to take a step forward in Ezra’s Jedi training, and help him find more of a connection with the Force. Ezra and his master journey out on the Phantom to find one of the many lost Jedi temples dotted throughout the galaxy. Kanan does however state in this episode that many of these hidden temples were discovered after the rise of the Empire and destroyed! There does however happen to be a secret temple on Lothal that is undiscovered, very conveniently placed I must say. This part of Ezra’s training is one of the most difficult parts, it requires him to connect with the Force and try to control his fear and anger. Remember guys and girls, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate.. leads to suffering”. So after Ezra unknowingly embraced the dark side on the abandoned asteroid outpost in Gathering Forces, it becomes increasingly important that he learns to control it sooner rather than later!

I loved how this episode followed closely in the footsteps of Yoda’s arc in Star Wars:The Clone Wars, that arc was one of my favorite arcs from the series and taught us a lot about the force we did not know. Path Of The Jedi followed on in showing us there is much more to becoming a Jedi than being able to wield a lightsaber. It shows us the incredibly difficult mental challenges a young Padawan must go through in order to overcome their fears, especially a very troubled young boy such as Ezra. I’ve been really struggling to connect with Ezra’s character since the show began, this episode though changed that for me. I was really captivated by his struggles of wanting to protect his friends and loved ones, something which we all know to well in the real world.

The Inquisitor was the winner for me in this episode though! Although only appearing as a vision to Ezra he is fast becoming an iconic villain in the Star Wars universe. The Inquisitor is calm, cold and collected all at the same time. Every time he shows up he mentally shreds our heroes apart and he’s pretty awesome with a saber too!

YODA! That’s what I said when I first heard the famous Jedi masters voice on screen! It was really great to have Frank Oz back voicing our “little green friend” again. Although I think Tom Kane did an outstanding job bringing Yoda to life in The Clone Wars and don’t get me wrong I loved his take! There is just something special about hearing Frank Oz voicing Yoda as he has a stern yet humorous tone that I can’t help but love. The way Yoda is bought to life on screen again pays great homage to that what we learnt in Yoda’s arc in The Clone Wars.

All in all this was a great episode, definitely my joint favorite episode so far, along with Gathering Forces. The show just keeps hotting up. For me Path Of The Jedi began to connect the prequel trilogy with the original trilogy. It did so in the sense that the mythological aspects which we learned from the prequel trilogy interconnected with where we first met Yoda in “The Empire Strikes Back”, and it seemed to fill in this void of the Force as it pertained to its users. After all, we didn’t really know what they were up to during the dark times and now we’re getting a better sense of that.

Path Of The Jedi airs on Disney XD next week, however if you have the Disney XD app it is available to watch now. What are you waiting for people?!